


Four is the Loneliest Number

by Outside_Context_Problem



Series: Alterra [1]
Category: Homestuck, They Came From The Violent Planet
Genre: Besides Hussie obviously, Crossing over obscure RPG supplements with Webcomics, Extraterrestrials, Greg Stolze is my god, It's me. I'm the nerd. All of the nerd., Mercenaries, psychic powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:23:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Outside_Context_Problem/pseuds/Outside_Context_Problem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is psychic. Everyone in the known universe. Everyone except us.</p><p> </p><p>Sort of original writing, but I'm using Hussie's trolls (more or less) and the Pesterchum formatting (and I may make recurring joke/SBaHJ references later), so I slapped the Homestuck label on it. Also sort of linked to Troll War (see the afternote).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most degraded inmate in the harshest Earthly prison has a freedom of thought that is beyond the reach of 80% of the galaxy’s sentients.

# Glimpse

"This was _not_ in the job description!"

For a fuckin' office-dweller, Noltin has a goddamn set of lungs. Although they're probably _atmospheric exchange scrubbers_ or some shit. Fuckin' trolls.

" **Suck it up, skinny, and MOVE!** "

Well. Mostly fuckin' trolls. Some trolls are _motherfuckin'_ trolls. Ring bless Elegba. Her M3M (vehicle/troll-mounted belt-fed) is already at waist level and whirring up. You perform a one-move stop, pivot, and drop to your knee, falling into rank next to her. The SCAR-HX is a full 4.5 kilos, but you've got the brawn to lock your arms with your rifle at shoulder-level and start firing with the right posture.

Picking out targets is the easy part: any one of them, because the Cyblobs have an entire planet's population to throw at you. It's trying to guess what the fuck a headshot - or even a center of mass shot - is going to be on _any_ of thirty different types of aliens that look like something you'd wipe off your boot in the kitchen, or step in on the lawn-ring at 3 AM - well, that's where things get a little tricky.

At least you're out and doing things. Dad must be proud.

# Descriptive

AssertiveTendency began recording Personal Log One, ~~Major~~ Michael Zhang at 0344 12/9/33  
AT: I continue to struggle with feelings of impossibility.  
AT: Not on a global or historical level, but simply on a personal one.  
AT: I can accept that we are not alone in the universe. That alterranity is co-located with dozens or hundreds of other sentient species.  
AT: I can even accept that we remain unique. Not only because we're two friendly, non-related sentients from the same planet - humans and trolls are already a curiosity for that trait.  
AT: But that we are the sole species known by the Leatherback Empire and Cyblob Protectorate to completely and totally lack psychic power, with our most powerful psionics being as potent and receptive as the handmade radios Elegba taught me to make when I was ten.  
AT: I will even admit to amused smugness on the point of our being the only species to have advanced from the idea of "hitting things with your appendages" to "hitting things with rocks", "hitting things with pointy objects", "hitting things with bullets", and "hitting things with nuclear fission".  
AT: It is one small fact - minuscule, in the face of things, I am constantly assured - that I cannot process.  
AT: The idea that I am no longer a member of the Bering Confederation Armed Forces.  
AT: The concept that, no matter how heavily-armed, trained, and ordered, I am now a mercenary.  
AT: Quite simply, I do not believe it has penetrated my mind that I have been betrayed.

ConciseTutor edited ~~The Alterran Condition~~ ~~Highly Comparative Neurology~~ ~~My Travels and Travails~~ Someone, Please, Get Me Out of Here, Chapter IV at 8:01 AM, 9/12/33  
CT: Certainly, we have benefitted immensely from our dual lineages, from 1000110010100 years without wide-spread species-motivated conflict, since the so-called _Tyrian Age_... My own past experience studying the brains of our  10 species has provided me considerable experience in the field of xeno-neuro-biology...  
CT: But there remain vast amounts of information we simply have not been allowed to access... My experiences as an intellectual-for-hire attest to this, via the differences in cultural awareness I have isolated from the random data thefts on different _Imperial Leatherback_ worlds that our technically-minded associate has provided... There is clearly a suppression of information at work among the _Empire _...__  
CT: As for the so-called _Cyblob Protectorate_ , while a species that prides itself on the ability to psychically crush dissent is more casual with their information, I believe they are beginning to realize that releasing everything to psi-blind _Alterrans_ would be a grave mistake...  
CT: The sources for this book consist of a smattering from the _Empire_ , _Protectorate_ , and the barely-aligned _Independent Worlds_... They are unverifiable, only marginally traceable, and hardly repeatable...  
CT: I am quite afraid I shall be accused of poor scholasticism by my peers... An accusation to which I can only respond with a question...  
CT: Comrade, have you ever attempted to collect accurate biological and demographical data while being chased by monsters with claws larger than your chest?

GuardianAngelkiller recorded at 11:31, December 9th, 2033.  
GA: PROUD of Mike. He's not soft from that army crap. 7om was scared about his boy lying around. PTSD. Combat Stress Reaction. Shell Shock. Whatever. I raise my Zhangs stronger than that.  
GA: CANNOT blame him though. Not really. Mike's his first. 7errence gave me blood pumper attacks all the Ringdamn time. But they keep growing up slower. My boys and girls. My moirails. 7errence was killing by 13. 7hat was in the middle of the 7hirty Years War, though. Fucking Doctrinalists. Noble Circle bar them from the Ring until eternity.  
GA: NEW boys are a mess. Mike tries to command them. Noltin's a _Professor_. Thinks he knows better.  
GA: MATT is just fucking creepy. 7hat's from a 7traumatic Entrustor of the Furthest Ring. So. Kid's wrong. Head. Soul. Dunno.  
GA: ALIENS are something else. Mike says they remind him of bugs. Crawling bugs. Slithering bugs. He's right.  
GA: DEAD right. 7hey're wrong. Worse than wrong. 7hey're mockeries. Mutations that are too weird to be us.  
GA: YET too mundane and verminous to be like the Noble Circle. But they hint at it.  
GA: I hate them. Mike restrains me. He's a good kid. He doesn't understand. But he's a good kid. Just like his great-grandfather, really.  
GA: I really miss 7ony sometimes.  
GA: FUCK this.

ConduitU------ edited *dir/loc/self at 040000 091233.  
CU: tHEY'RE STILL, aFRAID OF ME.  
CU: i DON'T KNOW WHAT, tO TELL THEM.  
CU: The Obvious Answer Would Be Nothing  
CU: They Are Not Owed Any Explanations From Me  
CU: BUT THEY'RE USEFUL FOR NOW.  
CU: MY MIND IS ONE FUCKED UP CESSPIT.  
CU: 4ND 1 N33D T1M3 TO SORT 1T OUT.  
CU: TH4T M34NS H1D1NG FROM 4 V3RY, V3RY L4RG3 NUMB3R OF P3OPL3.  
CU: AnD nOt-PeOpLe.  
CU: I'm NoT gReAt At HiDiNg JuSt YeT oR tHiS wOuLdN't HaVe HaPpEnEd To StArT wItH.  
CU: wwell you knoww wwhat they say  
CU: if youre gonna cowwer, do it behind the guys wwith big motherfuckin guns


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens don’t build weapons.
> 
> Let me repeat that: _Aliens don’t build weapons_. Until they met us, they had no concept of making a machine with no purpose beside harming others.

# Desperation

This is insanity given form. You aren't entirely surprised, given the experiences of the past... (You take only a second or two to calculate it) 101001011 hours. Visually, you believe you were prepared. Certainly those portions of your mind are functioning correctly (You've checked... admittedly, the readings from a _CAT Scan Neuroplant_ on the run aren't exactly laboratory-quality work). It's not as if _Alterra_ lacks its share of fantastic vistas (the _Van Krezat belt_ alone, or the troposphere boundary visible from the _Hawaiian Peaks_ ).

But the rather disturbing mental action you've gradually forced yourself to adjust to has been the constant requirement to sort out fantastical scenery (mobile or immobile) from fantastical sentients (mobile or immobile). The _Pokozica_ and its resemblance to a pile of mold-infested body coverings is merely the beginning.

That's a rather impolite thought, but you're afraid you are only alterran. It's hard to be scientific or even polite towards a species when the observation of one has turned your clients into your captors.

"Anyone else fucking bored by this?"

You have found that more than anything, this... expedition has expanded your view on _Alterran_ neurology. You had no idea it was possible for a troll (even a five-century one) to be as bluntly xenophobic, brutal, and thuggish as _Elegba Vidarr_ (nor to have as exquisitely curvaceous horns). The moirail to the _Zhang_ family has repeatedly claimed to only be on this road trip to madness because of her pale charge, but the former military man seems to be weathering things as well as anyone could, and he's certainly ruthlessly annihilated any number of thinking minds on his own. You have no doubt he has some sort of conflict-induced neural malady. Besides violence and soldiery themselves being atavistic mutations long since past the point of necessity.

Well. Maybe not entirely unnecessary.

_Zhang_ ignores his moirail's comment, bent as he is at the corner of your hastily-welded prison. The architecture deserves a note - the remarkable enlightenment of the _Cyblob Protectorate_ in terms of purely functional as well as aesthetically pleasing buildings is being undermined by the haste in which they've discovered the concept of physical imprisonment.

But _haste makes waste_ , to drag folk wisdom into a scientific conversation. You aren't quite the ancient (Or quite the _Ancestor_ ) that _Vidarr_ is, but you were around when alterran construction techniques were at this level. You were a construction worker, in fact. And wouldn't your human colleagues be shocked to learn of your blue-collar history. You'll have to leave it out of the omnibus, you suppose.

"They were rather sloppy with the corner welds." You quite nearly wilt at the combined attentions of _Vidarr_ and _Zhang_ , but manage to keep your lungs and vocal chords (not _thrum boxes_ , honestly, who came up with those things) functional. It's certainly no part of the stereotypes about crimson-blooded trolls. Just the fierce determination of a man who's defended three theses. "If we can find a way to channel our force into very localized leverage, we should be able to pry the lower panel up enough for an escape."

"Guards." _Zhang_ is so... crass. His words are so like his bullets.

"What for? After a mind is ego-broken, it doesn't need guarding or watching. The _Cyblobs_ simply aren't used to the concept. At worst, we'll have to... deal with... a few observers or passer-by."

"Passerby squid-bugs'd be a fucking problem."

"The _tiddahs_ are certainly the disposable violent life-forms of choice for both major powers, but they're not precisely built for analysis. We are unlikely to face that particular science-fiction monster watching us."

"At least not before we locate our armament."

"Precisely, Major." You're really not sure why that elicits a grunt and the back of _Zhang's_ head, or _Vidarr's_ wrathful eyes, but you make a mental note never to do it again. You are somewhat overflowing with mental notes at the moment, but you hammer this one into your short-term memory, doing everything you can to ensure it transfers to long-term.

"It is anxious." You are, embarrassingly, the only one to spin around, having somewhat forgotten about the existence of the mononymous _Matt_. You can forgive yourself. He's small, bizarrely quiet for one so young (You're not going to think about raising human teenagers right now, or moirallegiance), when he isn't being a... well, you suppose you must use the vernacular... _"suck puppy"_.

"That's fucking helpful." _Vidarr_ expels words with constant force. You imagine she must be able to drill through rock with her voice (or is that fantasize?).

"The mind is." The slender blonde head tilts on a neck that barely seems able to hold it. "In turmoil. There are many voices within the one."

"Get to the point, Specialist." _Zhang's_ stiff-necked attitude really isn't helping you keep from treating him like another thuggish soldier.

"The mind has a shadow. It hates the mind. It wants the mind thwarted, humiliated. The mind may stifle it. But that takes time." The waif of a boy smiles, and oh, but human teeth should not be so sharp. "The interim is ours."

"That's good enough. We break out, engage local lifeforms hand-to-hand, locate our equipment. What's our next step? We need a warper to get off-planet, and every single one on this globe isn't very happy with us right now."

"Told you not to fucking wander." My, you really, really mustn't ever provoke _Vidar_ into using with you the tone she's using with _Matt_.

"New forms. New minds. Someone's been a busy busy boy." And you really mustn't ever be the subject of the lad's attention when he's cackling like that.

"That's enough!" _Zhang_ bellows, and you feel your horns vibrate. The military man (who is rather large, you have to remind yourself, simply not in comparison to his mighty moirail) stomps over to the _"suck puppy"_ , sock puppet, psychic receptor, alterran freak of nature, statistical outlier, and pulls him off the ground by his collar. "I need solutions, not babbling! What do you see that helps us?"

"Mmm. Hmm. Mmm. No mind can fight, no mind can run, the network is too large, the breaking is too strong. No fighting mind, no running mind... hiding mind. Oh yes. Yes, I see. Hiding mind indeed."

"The fuck's he saying?"

"That there's something on this planet that can hide itself from telepathy. And it's not us. Keep up, Ele."

"Ring damn it, Mike, a year ago there wasn't any fucking telepathy and there was one fucking planet that mattered."

"And it's not a year ago any longer. Matt. Where is this hiding mind?"

"Close. Small and close and oh-so-closed. Not hard closed, hollow closed, human closed. Soft closed, muscle closed."

"So they can shut off. Okay. Lead us there."

You're afraid you have to speak up. Sometimes these people simply lose track of priorities. "Maj- Michael, we don't have a way out yet. I said we would require leverage. That needs, well, a lever."

"That's not a problem. Ele, hold me up."

"Noble Circle, Mike, you are not-"

The soldier turns fast enough to scare you into almost jumping. The fire in his eyes is a secondary source of fear.

"Elegba. I'm in command here. Do it." His words, by contrast, are flat, yet fervent.

"Done." _Vidarr_ takes her pale charge by the shoulders, and he reaches around his back with one arm. You hear a horrible crunch, a wet, organic noise that puts you very very close to vomiting. _Matt_ burbles, a demented sound resembling laughter.

_Zhang_ withdraws a black hexagonal carbon-fiber rod the length of his forearm, with multiple electronic attachment points at either end. That, along with the way his legs are trailing upon the ground now, leads you rather quickly to the obvious conclusion.

Although you're rather perplexed as to why the locked spinal implant is being handed to you.

"Put it in position," _Zhang_ orders, and you don't feel you have it in you to object. "Everyone get ready to pull, run, fight, and find whatever the fuck a hiding mind is."

"Michael, if this damages your implant-" you begin.

"Then you fucking leave me behind and you get the fuck back to Alterra, Asudai." He flashes only a glimpse of a wan, stifled smile, a softness that hardly belongs on his face. "And you get everything you've learned to a place where it matters."

# Loyalties

yeah they bought it   
not like its hard for anything to seem impossible to an alterran now   
you just hold up your end of the deal   
because you know exactly what i can do if you betray me   
dont be shy   
you engineered that voice box and learned alterrac for a reason.   
we know what you can do   
and   
and if betrayal is to occur we will kill you first   
youre learning   
good luck :D

**Author's Note:**

>  _They Came From The Violent Planet_ is an expansion/setting for _REIGN_ , an RPG by [Greg Stolze](http://www.gregstolze.com/index.html). The premise, in case the above isn't clear, is that humanity encounters aliens and learns they are the sole species in the universe without psychic powers - and the sole species nearly invulnerable to them. As a result, we're also the only ones who invented the idea of physical weapons. It's chaotic, fantastic, and brimming with opportunities for semi-legal teams of misfits with disparate specialties. (In other words, shock of shockers, it's an RPG setting)
> 
> I fucked with it slightly by squishing Earth and replacing it with Alterra, where humans and trolls have co-existed for millennia, occasionally peacefully. You'll note the term moirail pops up. You may guess it means something a bit different than Homestuck canon. A coveted No-Prize to whoever guesses how it relates to human-troll relations!
> 
> As a random author's-brain side-note, this is a reality created by the ascended characters at the end of [The Troll War](http://archiveofourown.org/series/15751), because they got bored and wanted to see what would happen.


End file.
